1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a baby crib pad with air gaps for use on a baby crib for the purpose of protecting a baby from bumping against the balusters of a baby crib while eliminating the danger of the baby being strangled or suffocated by the pad and lessening the possibility of sudden infant death syndrome.
2. Description of the Related Art
The current advice of most pediatricians is that mothers should not use any type of pads in their baby cribs. This advice is given because of several dangers that the traditional crib pads present to babies. A first threat is that the pad or the pad's fastening straps may become wound around the baby's neck and strangle the baby. A second threat is that the baby could roll so that its face was against the pad with both its mouth and nose obstructed by the pad and thereby suffocating the baby. Also, mothers who have both a baby and a toddler worry that the toddler might accidentally dislodge the pad so that the pad falls into the crib on top of the baby, and somehow cover the baby's face and suffocating the baby. Still another danger with use of current crib pads is that many are not tightly secured to the balusters of the crib and the baby can get its head wedged between the pad and the balusters and can be suffocated or strangled.
However, without any type of padding in use on the balusters of baby cribs, babies are in danger of striking their bodies against the balusters and becoming injured. And without the use of some type of pad on the crib, babies often extend their arms or legs between the balusters where the appendage can become stuck and require an adult to free the appendage. Some older types of cribs have balusters that are spaced too far apart and a baby can actually get its head through the opening between adjacent balusters when there is no pad to prevent this, resulting in the child being choked.
Another problem with current pads for baby cribs is that they are generally secured loosely at only a few points to the crib so that a baby can crawl up between the pad and the crib and suffocate.
Still a further problem with current pads is that they prevent air from moving freely into and out of the crib in the area near the surface of the mattress where the baby is laying. The heat buildup and buildup of carbon dioxide and lack of oxygen resulting from lack of air circulation has been cited as possible contributing factors to the tragic problem of sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS.
There have been attempts to address this problem. One patent that attempts to address this problem is U.S. Pat. No. 6,13,216 issued to MacDonald Pine on Oct. 17, 2000. The Pine patent teaches some desirable features in a crib pad, such as various types of air openings provided in a crib pad and also ties to hold the pad to the crib's balusters. However, the air gaps taught by Pine, and specifically the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 5 of that patent, do not have openings that are large enough in proportion to the pad area to prevent possible suffocation of a baby. The openings shown in that patent are half circles cut out of the lower portion of the pad, but the cut out half circles are not continuous in that the cut out portion of one half circle does not continue from its adjacent cut out half circle. Instead there is a distance between the cut outs that appears to be larger than the width of the cut outs themselves. This is due in part to the wide spacing of the cut outs and in part to the orientation of the cut outs which are of an inverted u-shape. The present invention improves over this design by making the lower portion of the pad a continuously repeating series of u-shaped crescents with the junction of the crescents forming the openings with the crib mattress, spacing the crescents so that they join each other in as continuous repeating fashion so that the openings formed between the crescent are closer together. Preferably the spacing of the crescents coincides with the spacing of the balusters on the crib. This arrangement of a series of continuously repeating u-shaped crescents on the pad insures larger proportions of opening area to pad area at the surface of the crib mattress. This larger proportion of opening area to pad area provides for better air flow, less heat retention within the crib and lessens the possibility that a baby could have both its mouth and nose simultaneously obstructed by the pad and the potential for sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS.
The present invention addresses these problems by providing a pad that consists of a plurality of tightly padded segments with each padded segment provided with one or more cooperating pairs of vertical flaps secured to the back side of the segments. Each vertical flap is provided with at least one tie fastener that attach around one or more of the balusters of the crib on the outside of the baby crib and ties in a knot with a tie fastener on a cooperating vertical flap as a means of securing the segments to the crib. The padded segments are tall enough so that a baby will not be able to reach the tie fasteners from within the crib. Also, the tie fasteners are specifically designed to be short so that they are long enough to allow an adult to tie them into a knot to secure the segment to the crib's balusters, but sufficiently short so that the baby will not be in danger of having the tie fasteners become wound around the baby's neck and strangling the baby. Because the tie fasteners are tied into a knot, a toddler would find it difficult to untie them from the outside of the crib.
The padded portion of the segments is tightly padded so that it stands erect against the balusters when tied thereto. The lower border of the padded portion of the segments is formed into a repeating compact crescent shield or buffer shape so that the longer portions of the crescent shapes rest against the mattress of the baby crib and support the segments above the mattress while the shorter parts of the crescents and the short junction between adjacent crescents remains erect and forms lower openings between the crib mattress and the pad. These openings preferably coincide with the spacing of the balusters of the crib. These openings permit air to flow freely between the inside and outside of the crib at the surface of the crib mattress.
Also, because the crescent shapes are so narrow and closely spaced in the present invention, this prevents a baby from rolling over against a segment and having both its mouth and nose covered or blocked by one of the longer portions of the crescent shapes. This further reduces the chance that a baby could be suffocated by the present invention.
A further advantage of the present invention is that it is easy to manufacture and is an esthetically pleasing and marketable design.